We live, simultaneously, in two different worlds. Ultimately, we live in the World of Nature, a world that we did not create and the world upon which all life depends. Most immediately, we inhabit a "human world" that we create ourselves. Because our human world is the result of our own choices and actions, we can say, quite properly, that we live, most immediately, in a “political world.” In this blog, I hope to explore the interaction of these two worlds that we call home.

About Me

Gary A. Patton

I was an elected official in Santa Cruz County, California for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995. Now, I am an environmental attorney, practicing law in Santa Cruz County. If you would like to contact me, send me an email at gapatton@mac.com.

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Friday, February 28, 2014

#59 / Nattering Nabobs

Spiro Agnew, pictured, served as Vice President under Richard Nixon, and was ultimately forced to resign, in 1973, after he pleaded nolo contendere to a charge of tax evasion.

In an extremely entertaining reminiscence, New Yorker editor David Remnick describes Agnew's rhetorical style as “surrealist-alliterative." It was Agnew who described those who challenged the Nixon Administration as "nattering nabobs of negativism." Remnick provides the full quote, with even more alliteration in evidence:

In the United States today, we have more than our share of nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H club—the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.

Of course, at the time, I think I would have qualified in the Vice President's eyes as part of the leadership circle of those 4-H clubs. History has been kinder to us than the Vice President was.

For what it's worth, from one proud to have been a Nixon era "nattering nabob," we need more people to take on the government. And that means our current President and his Administration, too.

Employing the vast human, economic, and technological resources of the United States to carry out the slaughter of those called "enemies," whether by armies of American young people (in Vietnam) or by remote, death-dealing drones, is just plain wrong.